PC Scheduling Guidelines

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The scheduling tool PCII is available from Saturday, 08 February. Before starting, please finalize the convener tools SOI+SOII (abstract implementation and session tagging) of ALL your sessions (access through tool PCI), and/or arrange for a final merge/transfer by informing meetings@copernicus.org to do so.

Oral Block Assignment

• OB allocation is based on four time blocks per day for five days in 39 rooms (780 oral blocks total rounded). This does not include the rooms reserved for various items such as Union Symposia US, Educational Symposia EOS, etc. An oral block is 1.5 hours.
• For the purpose of these calculations, we 'froze' the number of total (oral plus poster) abstracts per PG as of Tuesday, 04 February, 01:30 CET. Only those sessions where the particular PG is lead or sole organizer were included in these abstracts.
• Abstracts submitted to PICO sessions were not included in the calculation since PICO session does not compete with oral presentations in terms of rooms and time blocks
• We equally divided amongst the PGs the OBs available, adding in the number of medal lectures per PG (1 OB extra for medal lectures included in normal sessions during time blocks I-IV) to arrive at a fair distribution of OBs per PG. This does not include four Arne Richter OYS Award lectures (30’ lectures) for four PGs, which will be dealt with separately (e.g. extending the session into the break for 30 minutes).
• Please download the final allocation of OBs per PG.

Room Allocation

• To arrive at room allocations, we spent an appreciable amount of time to try and take into account a number of items in our allocations.
• We first examined a detailed list, as reported during EGU2013 by conference assistants, of how full each room was during every session. We used this list to be aware of those PGs which consistently had several sessions where the rooms were 'over full'.
• We then allocated rooms based on the above, plus other general comments expressed by both Council and PC members, trying to keep in mind the following: (a) putting similar (where possible) PGs near each other, (b) giving a mixture of room sizes, so that smaller PGs that were fine with the same room for 90% of the time, but just needed 'one day' or 'two days' in a large room could be accommodated, and (c) putting the same PG on the same floor.
• Please download the room allocations.

What happens now?

• ROOMS AND TIMES. You now have an idea of where your rooms will be (download floor plans) for oral sessions and how many oral blocks you have to use. You may schedule sessions in TB1 to TB4 for oral sessions.
• MIXED ROOMS. In some cases you are sharing rooms with other PGs. You need to discuss with them, in an amicable way, your specific needs for who goes to which day. We recommend that for medium and large rooms (>= 200), that if there is a PG with just a few OBs in a given room, that they be given priority, as they are the ones who are often trying to schedule 'their one larger session'.
• PLEASE DO NOT SCHEDULE OBs IN ROOMS YOU HAVE NOT BEEN ALLOCATED, unless you are making a 'trade' with another PG, and have discussed it with them.
• MEDAL LECTURES. Remember to schedule your medal lectures. Be careful they do not conflict with other similar sessions in your and in other programmes. Stand-alone medal lectures are already scheduled in TB6 in various rooms. For any changes, please contact meetings@copernicus.org
• WHEN TO SCHEDULE POSTER SESSIONS? For posters, you may schedule them in TB1 to TB5. However, it is generally better to avoid TB1 and TB2 of Monday. For posters, it is often better to have a poster session FOLLOW an oral block (unless conveners ask otherwise) so that the conveners might be able to mention the posters as part of the oral block. Please do not separate posters and oral blocks for the same session by more than a day.
• SPREAD POSTERS EQUALLY ACROSS ALL FIVE DAYS. For posters, please spread them EQUALLY across all days, including Monday and Friday. Do not group all your posters on just a couple of days.
• POSTER SUMMARY DISCUSSION (PSD) ROOMS. You are also able to see if conveners have requested PSDs, which you will also schedule in the tool PCII, subject to availability. These will be 45’ sessions, 15’ between sessions.
• PICO. A number of PICO sessions need to be merged with other sessions since they contain only one or two abstracts (in total 15 PICO sessions). All other PICO sessions should be scheduled in PCII. PICO sessions receive one time block (TB) per 20 abstracts since this year, there will be a sequence of 20 2-minutes-madness followed by viewing time for these 20 contributions. Please download the list of PICO sessions and their assigned TBs.
• WHO SCHEDULES CO-ORGANIZED SESSIONS? A given PG is responsible for scheduling all sessions where they are the 'lead' or only organizer. But, please be aware of those sessions which you are not the lead organizer, so that particular themes do not clash. For instance, a BG/CL session is scheduled into a room by BG, but CL should be aware of when it is being scheduled.
• OVERLAPS. Please be particularly aware as you compile your programme of overlaps in the programme, as it is not too late to combine sessions (through meetings@copernicus.org), within your own PG or with other PGs. One of the most complained about things last year was overlaps, and ‘very small’ sessions.
• REJECTED ABSTRACT. Please be very aware of rejected abstracts, as everyone must be justified. An abstract can be rejected because of being an exact duplicate (or 95% duplicate), not in English, or scientifically unintelligible. If it is just a poor fit or poor science, it should not be rejected, but rather a home found for it.
• SHORT COURSES. Please be aware of short courses for your particular programme group. They are already scheduled in various rooms in case TB5 was requested. Regarding any changes, please contact meetings@copernicus.org
• PG GROUP EMAILS. Emails of PC members can be found on the EGU2014 Programme Committee website.